WawonaNews.com - April 2012

Glacier Point Road Opens Toady (4/20)

The Glacier Point Road in Yosemite National Park will open for the season today, Friday, April 20, at 5:00 p.m. There will be limited visitor services available at Glacier Point. Vault toilets will be available, and there will be no running water. There is no projected opening date for the Bridalveil Creek Campground.

The roadway may be wet due to melting snow and wildlife may be present on or near the road. Visitors are urged to drive with caution while in the park. The Glacier Point Road is subject to unexpected and temporary closures due to unpredictable spring storms that may produce snow at the higher elevations of the park.

Due to snow, ice, and avalanche conditions, the Tioga Road will remain closed. There is no projected opening date for the Tioga Road at this time.

For up to date, 24 hour road and weather information, please call 209-372-0200.

Road Work on Wawona Road

Roads crews will be working this week (4/16) on Wawona Road (Hwy 41) between South Entrance and Mosquito Creek. Slight traffic delays are expected.

CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS TIMELINES

Re-establish Exit Lane at South Entrance

**Construction of the former exit lane located west of the existing South Entrance Kiosks.

**Construction Began December 2011.

**Planned Completion Date = May 25, 2012

**There will be both day and night time work. The night time work will commence on April 29th (Sunday thru Thursday nights 8:00 PM to 6:00 AM) with up to 15-minute delays.

**There will also Wawona Road repairs around the South Entrance Intersection, whereby we will be grinding up the existing pavement and repaving.

**Expect up to 15 minute traffic delays.

Summer 2012 Pavement Preservation Project

**Planned Start Date = June 15, 2012

**Planned Completion Date = October 1, 2012

**Currently out for bid.

**Wawona Road Construction (Yosemite Valley to 1/2 Mile West of South Entrance Station). This work includes placing a seal/wearing course over the new section of Wawona Road (24.5 miles). It is anticipated that the majority of this Wawona Road work will occur at night between 8:00 PM and 6:00 AM with up to 15 minute delays.

**NPS Secondary Roads in the Wawona Area (Chilnualna Falls Road and Forest Drive, etc. along with adjacent parking areas). This work includes placing a seal over the NPS segments of these roads and it is anticipated that the majority of this work will occur between the daytime hours of 6:00 AM and 8:00 PM with up to 15-minute delays.

The traffic delays are 15 minutes total, so it does not matter if they are working near Yosemite Valley, on Glacier Point Road or in Wawona, the total for all areas cannot be greater than 15-minutes cumulative.

Heavy snow and power outage force cancellation of Wawona Workshop

April 13, 2012Today’s Merced River Plan workshop in Wawona, scheduled from 1–3:30 p.m., has been cancelled due to inclement weather and a power outage in the Wawona area, including the Community Hall. Heavy snow continues to fall in Wawona, and there has been no power in the Wawona Community Hall since 8:30 a.m. We apologize for the late notice, and will let you know the date for the rescheduled meeting as soon as we determine it.

Wawona MRP Workshop Still On. Site Visit Canceled Due To Weather

April 12, 2012

The Merced River Plan workshop in Wawona will take place 1-3:30 p.m. tomorrow, April 13, at the Wawona Community Hall. However, the site visit portion of the workshop, scheduled from 10 a.m – noon, has been canceled due to inclement weather. If you can make it, be sure to join us at the Wawona workshop to preview the preliminary alternative concepts for the Merced River Plan.

Earth Day in Wawona

Every Day is Earth Day. Join Tom Bopp for a celebration of Earth Day while exploring the roles of John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt in Yosemite. Wawona Hotel Lounge.

Yosemite National Park Celebrates National Park Week and Earth Day

Yosemite News ReleaseApril 10, 2012

Yosemite National Park Celebrates National Park Week and Earth Day with Special Programs and Activities National Park Week April 21 – April 29 Earth Day April 22

Yosemite National Park will celebrate National Park Week and Earth Day beginning Saturday, April 21 through Sunday, April 29. Many special events and activities are being sponsored by the National Park Service (NPS), DNCParks and Resorts at Yosemite, Inc. (the park’s primary concessioner), and the Ansel Adams Gallery.

To help celebrate National Park Week and Earth Day, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, has announced entrance fees will be waived for Yosemite and all other national parks for the entire week. Camping fees and all other fees will still be applicable.

This year, the focus of National Park Week will be Picture Yourself in a National Park. Many of the programs and events during this week will encourage visitors to experience something new in a national park. Visitors will have the opportunity to experience special activities and learn how to support national parks throughout the country.

04/05/2012

Year in Yosemite: The Inspiration

"I know that I am one with beauty and that my comrades are one. Let our souls be mountains, Let our spirits be stars, Let our hearts be worlds."

-- Gaelic saying/Adams's favorite

We moved to Yosemite National Park three years ago because of Ansel Adams. And, spectacular as they are, it wasn't his photographs that hooked us. It was his early life. Like so many people who went on to change our world -- Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, Walt Disney, Richard Branson, Charles Dickens -- he never finished school. Some of these people dropped out for economic reasons. Some, like Branson, were lousy students. And some, like Adams, Einstein and Edison, got kicked out and were asked to never come back. Too distracted, too dreamy and too inattentive, they proved a trial and tribulation for their teachers.

In Ansel Adams's case, he got lucky. After multiple schools had asked him to leave, his parents decided to home school him. When they discovered that nature calmed their high- energy, fidgety son they let nature become his greatest teacher.

So unconventional was Adams's education that during his middle school years, his father bought him a pass to San Francisco's 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition and sent his son off to attend it every day.

In 1916, Adams and his family traveled to Yosemite. His father gave him a Kodak Brownie camera so he could record the scenery. But Adams, who had begun to play the piano at the age of 12, saw his future as a classical pianist. He was interested in photography but not yet obsessed with it.

Then fate intervened. When Adams failed to fully recover from the flu during the epidemic of 1918, his parents sent him to Yosemite, thinking the fresh air would do him good. It did far more than that. Yosemite was the making of Ansel Adams. Hiking its high country, camera in hand, he began to see wilderness as essential to man’s happiness. When he realized that his piano playing was not quite good enough to lead to a career as a classical pianist, he decided to devote himself to his photography. (By that time he’d also married Virginia Best whose parents owned the photography shop, now the Ansel Adams Gallery, in Yosemite Valley).

During the Depression, photographers like Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans used their art to expose the underbelly of poverty in America. Adams chose a different tack. Like Jessie Benton Fremont, Frederick Law Olmstead, Galen Clark and John Muir, time spent in Yosemite and the Sierras led Ansel Adams to the conclusion that the preservation of wilderness was as essential to man's health as food. "I believe in beauty. I believe in stones and water, air and soil, people and their future and their fate," he said.

It was in hopes of providing the best possible future for our daughter that we moved to Yosemite. Like Adams, she was fidgety and uninspired by school. After reading about Ansel Adam’s early years, I was hoping that a life lived in nature would do for her what it did for him. This is not to say that I expect her to become a world-famous photographer, although she seems to know her way around a camera.

No, my wish for her, and for all people, is that they discover their great passion in life and have the guts and the gumption to pursue it. My experience of living in Yosemite is that when nature surrounds you, when quiet and solitude is the order of the day, it is easier to hear one's deep internal voices. Then, hopefully, as in Adams's favorite saying, it is possible to be one with beauty and let one’s heart be the world.

03/30/2012

Year in Yosemite: Inspired Pilgrim

"We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us,…" -- John Muir

A couple of weeks ago, 25 students and almost as many parents went to see our Mariposa County Supervisor. He spoke for an hour and held his audience spellbound. There was no talk of politics but I'd be willing to bet he filled our students' young minds with thoughts of possibility and power, social responsibility, and civic action. That's because our local county supervisor is Lee Stetson. A trained actor, director and writer, Mr. Stetson treated us to what he’s best known for—his one-man show as John Muir.

Now I know it's just about impossible to live in Yosemite, or to love the national parks, or contemplate the wonder and healing power of nature without coming across the name John Muir. But, until I saw Mr. Stetson, I never thought about the fact that Muir had a lilting Scottish accent that must have gone a long way toward charming his audiences, be they presidents or townspeople. In Mr. Stetson's capable hands, Muir came across as passionate about life, endlessly curious, an enthusiastic talker, (Galen Clark's main complaint about him) and very clever. He could build a sawmill, fashion a cabin (complete with a stream running through it so he could fall asleep to its comforting sound), and concoct a bed that would pitch him onto the floor each morning.

The son of a serious and dictatorial man, Muir seems to have run in the opposite vein. Early on, he left behind his father's harsh religion and settled instead on nature as his religion and his calling. He was in awe of Emerson, obsessed with Thoreau and determined to model his life after theirs. Considered by many to be frighteningly naïve (especially about the possibilities of politics), he was either lucky enough or smart enough to align himself with powerful patrons. They gave him the important political introductions to pursue his great love—the establishment of the national parks and the preservation of wilderness. But even if he had not attracted these people into his life, Mr. Stetson's portrayal of Muir left one overriding impression. John Muir was a spirited doer; it was impossible to keep him down.

As a young man, he worked 12 hours a day at hard physical labor on his father's farm, then spent almost as long reading and working on his inventions. When an industrial accident caused him to lose his sight (He thought forever, but it turned out to be for a month.), he made up for lost time by walking 1,000 miles from Indiana to the Gulf of Mexico. Eventually heading West, he made California his own, most especially the Sierra Nevada.

When Mr. Muir died at the age of 76, he left behind a family, 12 major books, over 300 articles, his journals and The Sierra Club. Known by then as the "Father of the National Park System," he could claim a direct hand in the establishment of Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon, Mount Rainier and Grand Canyon National Parks. More importantly, he had helped to establish the idea of wilderness preservation as an American ideal.

Some claim that the loss of Yosemite's other magnificent valley, Hetch Hetchy, (San Francisco flooded it to use as a reservoir for its water) caused Muir to die of a broken heart. I think not. This was the man who claimed that "The battle for conservation must go on endlessly. It is part of the universal warfare between right and wrong." Clearly seeing himself on the side of right, Muir understood that through his example and through his writings, he had established a lasting legacy that would help guide generations.

Muir's spirit reached out to Lee Stetson when he first made his way to Yosemite, over 30 years ago. Taking a job at the front desk of Curry Village, he used his time in Yosemite to research and write about Muir. When no one wanted to take on the part, he made it his own, bringing alive the character and stories of the great man. This summer, he’ll offer up his interpretation of John Muir two nights a week in Yosemite Valley. During the day, you can find Mr. Stetson at his desk in Mariposa County, working, as Muir did, for the people—both with the goal of enriching people's lives.

-- Jamie Simons/ images: top photo by Nancy Casolaro, middle photo by Jon Jay, and John Muir portrait is courtesy the National Park Service.

Happy Anniversary Wawona News!

Pat Sischo & Fede Peinado

Hard to believe, but here it is, the first anniversary of our web page. Pat has worked really hard this year always finding material for the page and Fede has had the easier job of just posting it! Our motivation has been none other than to provide the community of Wawona with a website of its own, and keep everybody informed and entertained. If nothing else, we have kept ourselves entertained. But we know some of you are loyal readers and we appreciate that. As a way to celebrate this first year, we have redesigned the page for a little change. We hope you like it. So thanks to you all and happy first anniversary, Wawona News!

Planning Process for the Merced Wild and Scenic River Comprehensive Management Plan

March 21, 2012

Preliminary Alternative Concepts Workbook Released to Support Public MRP Workshops

Yosemite National Park is committed to engaging the public throughout the planning process for the Merced Wild and Scenic River Comprehensive Management Plan. To support this effort, Yosemite released the Preliminary Alternative Concepts Workbook on March 19, 2012. Within the workbook, five alternative concepts offer a range of options to manage river values, visitor-use capacity, and land use. The workbook will guide discussions at a series of spring 2012 public workshops and webinars, set for late March and April. Prepare to attend a workshop by downloading the workbook at http://www.nps.gov/yose/parkmgmt/mrp_documents.htm or receive a paper copy at a public meeting.

Public comment and internal review will be incorporated into the draft alternatives that will be analyzed in the draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) due to be released in fall 2012.

For more information or questions, call the Planning Division at 209/379-1110 with questions.

Ed Mee Running for District 5 Supervisor

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

I am married with three grown children, a step-daughter still at home and three grand-daughters. My roots in Mariposa go back to Gold Rush days. I was born in Yosemite Valley to the pioneer Gordon and Ashworth families. My grandfather and great grandfather drove stage for the Yosemite Transportation System from Raymond, through Fish Camp and Wawona and on into Yosemite Valley. The Gordon’s have lived in Wawona since 1902. I have maintained a home in Wawona since 1975 and was part owner of a cattle ranch on Yaqui Gulch Road.

While attending California State University, Fresno, I was a USNPS Park Ranger in Yosemite. I graduated with a degree in Criminology and eventually retired from Fresno Sheriff’s Department as a Detective Sergeant. During my 33 year law enforcement career, I supervised many specialty units, was the interim Assistant Chief of Police for Kerman Police Department, Peace Officer of the Year and Medal of Valor recipient. I have lived in Wawona for the last 11 years.

In 2000 I was appointed to the Wawona Town Planning Advisory Committee and became the Chair in 2002. During the last 12 years, we have worked, like Fish Camp, on a number of issues important to the community. Through many public meetings and workshops, we have submitted to and were approved by the Board of Supervisors a number of important items including a garbage contract with some of the lowest rates in the County, the Wawona Town Specific Plan and the Camp Wawona Project - the last with 88 conditions. In the process, I discovered how important planning is to us all on both the community and county level. Five years ago I was appointed to the Mariposa County LAFCo.

Knowing how important the Wawona School is to our two communities, I became involved in the fight to keep the Wawona School open. After countless meetings with the California Department of Education, Madera and Mariposa County Departments of Education, the Bass Lake Elementary School District, the Yosemite High School District, UC Merced and the National Park Service, our school is still open for our kids. One of the most important tasks was establishing a non-profit foundation for the school that has paid to keep the school open the last two years. Parents and residents of Fish Camp and Wawona started the Yosemite-Wawona Education Foundation. I have been the Chairman of the Y-WEF Board since 2004.

Over the years past Board of Supervisors have made a number of poor decisions which we are now paying for. The current Board, in no small part to Jim Allen’s efforts, has worked hard to change this. I think we are finally going in the right direction. When our District 5 Supervisor, Jim Allen, asked me to run, I felt that I could lead with integrity, honesty and common sense. I once heard the statement that “Managers do things right, leaders do the right thing”. I truly believe this.

I look forward to being your representative as a Supervisor and appreciate your vote in June.

Thank you,

Ed Mee

John Carrier running for District 5 Supervisor

My name is John Carrier and I am running for the position of District 5 Supervisor. Recently I tried to convince my wife Barbara who has worked for Mariposa County Public Works Department to run for the District 5 Supervisor position, as her thorough understanding of the County’s “top to bottom” operations would be of great value. Barbara had decided last year she would retire in December and all during last year I was constantly urging her to consider running for Supervisor. Last week, after discussing the article in the Mariposa Gazette stating no one had yet applied for the District 5 position, I told her she should run for the Supervisor position. Barbara replied back and said if I felt that concerned and passionate about it, I should run for the position. With that challenge I realized I do have a great concern for the county and should probably put “my money where my mouth is”. Knowing I would have Barb’s support and knowledge behind me, I went into town and requested the paperwork to apply for the District 5 Supervisor position.My family and I came to Mariposa from San Diego 15 years ago as a result of a job promotion. We have called Mariposa our home ever since, and plan to do so for many years. The community has welcomed our family and has provided many opportunities for us to grow. For a “Mariposan” 15 years is not considered a long time, but for us we have felt as though we have lived here our whole lives. We have raised our children in this community and are now watching their children, our grandchildren, grow up here. We feel this would be an opportunity for our family to pay it forward to the community and make sure we are doing our part in making sure Mariposa continues to be a great, caring, and generous community.In 2005-2006, I was given the opportunity to serve as foreperson of the Grand Jury. This gave me an education and appreciation of the workings, policies and procedures of the various departments within the Mariposa County Government.In these tight fiscal times we must make sure we can identify efficiencies and stream-line processes to make the most out of the County’s budget. Roads, public safety and the welfare of our children are some of the most essential services the County must provide. We must try to identify long term stable revenue sources in order to keep the County budget on a long term strategic spending plan.I am currently employed by the State of California’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection as the Senior Forestry Equipment Manager, overseeing 3000 pieces of equipment and the $18,000,000 CAL FIRE Equipment program budget. I started State service in 1984 and eventually came to work with CAL FIRE as the Fleet Manager in the Madera-Mariposa-Merced CDF Unit. While in that position I was awarded a superior accomplishment award for leadership in 2001. I was promoted to the Region Fleet Manager position for the Southern Region assigned to the Fresno office and then on to the top Fleet Manager position in Sacramento. I have continued to make Mariposa my family’s home during all the changes.In addition to my 31 years of experience in designing, repairing and maintaining heavy equipment, I hold a degree in Business Administration. I represent CAL FIRE as a principal member of the National Fire Protection Association Fire Department Apparatus Committee and am a member of the National Wildfire Coordinating Group Fire Equipment Working Team engine sub-committee.I feel that my qualifications are an excellent match for the requirements of the Supervisor position and I look forward to participating in the election process. I believe I can contribute to paying back to our community through my versatile skills and abilities, in an effective and efficient manner. I want to make sure Mariposa is a community the citizens can be proud to call their home; I am.Sincerely,John Carrier5011 Chowchilla Mountain RdMariposa, CA 95338(209) 966-6278

03/19/2012

Year in Yosemite: Natural Opposites

Now that I know that we'll be leaving our home in Yosemite National Park by summer, I've become acutely aware of everything around me.Almost daily I add to my list of things that I'll miss—the frogs that bluster and croak in the seasonal pond by our library; the first daffodils that bloom at my daughter's school; the magnificent ride from Fresno to Yosemite through the Sierra foothills and, of course, the breathtaking beauty of this place.

And while I know living by the beach in Southern California will offer its own version of views to rival Yosemite's, I don't believe I'll find anything in Orange County to rival the mountain area's deeply eccentric charm. Where else but here would you find a building that's part gas station and part church? Where will I find another chiropractor's office that has copies of Body & Soul magazine sitting alongside Guns & Ammo? Will the Elks Club of Orange County help children get craniosacral bodywork like the Elks Club here does?

In the mountains, Tea Party members serve vegan meals at their restaurants, a California Highway Patrolman runs the area's only grass-fed beef farm and children who are home schooled for religious reasons look and sound an awful lot like children raised on "hippie" communes. I love it all. In the mountains, the most improbable things, and people, often find themselves sitting side by side as if opposites attracting were a preordained part of life here.

If there is one unifying theme, it seems to me to be a love for the land. Casual conversations, usually about the weather, regularly turn into musings about nature. At the gas station, the attendant filling my tank mentions that he's worried our very warm, dry winter will mean trouble for the trees this summer. "How will they fight off beetle-bore disease," he asks?

A Forest Service botanist stops to talk about the forest fauna, wondering how the animals will fare if there is a sudden, major snowstorm. The librarian in Wawona takes a break outside just to listen to the frogs.

Everywhere, everyone talks about the possibility of a bad fire season this year. But the worry here is different than in the city. Naturally, people are concerned about their homes and safety, but there’s also an acceptance and understanding about the good to be had from fire. To be raised in the mountains is to grow up with an awareness of the danger of dense underbrush, the need to rejuvenate forests and the absolute necessity of fire to the health of giant sequoias.

Before moving to Yosemite, I had spent my life living in cities. I know first hand how seductive that life can be. Don't want to cook? Head for a restaurant. Looking for a distraction? How about a store or a movie? In the city, it’s easy for nature to seem divorced from daily life. But not here. Somehow the mountains seem to produce a fair crop of I-can-do-it, outdoor-oriented, independent-minded people. It's something I find as bracing as the air. And I'll miss them — Body & Soul and Guns &Ammo readers alike.

Yosemite National Park announces that the Big Oak Flat Road (Highway 120 within the park) will reopen both lanes of traffic at 6:00 a.m. on Saturday, March 10, 2012. The closure and road repairs were necessary after a large rockslide severely damaged the road on Sunday, January 22, 2012.

The closure was expected to last until early April, but once the repair work began, crews found the extent of subsurface damage was less than originally anticipated. The mild weather over the past few weeks was also a major contributing factor, allowing road crews to work around the clock in order to safely reopen the road to traffic.

“We want to thank park staff, the Federal Highways Administration, and the contractor T. L. Peterson, Inc., for their tremendous effort to open the road quickly,” said Don Neubacher, Yosemite National Park Superintendent. “This will help reduce the economic burden that the closure caused for our gateway communities. The reopening is also good news for community members that regularly travel on the road to other parts of the park.”

The remaining road repairs work will occur over the next few weeks with minimal delays and intermittent single lane traffic control. (K. Cobb)